Walking in Cape Millay, Part One

okay.

For those reading, the distance between me and my home has been extended greatly for the next several months. A sea-distance away from three sisters kingdom.

I am falling in love with South Africa.
Cape Millay is a community on the west side of Capetown. It is tucked away past the Museum Mile, past the wild nights of Long Street, and past Queen Victoria's Botanical Gardens. A few sky scrapers rise from the pavement, but do not dwarf Table Mountain which holds court over the city. The mountain does seem to watch over everything - people refer to Capetown as the Mother City because from a distance the rocky skyline adopts the figure of a reclining woman, cradling the city. It is comforting. What a figure to take shape over a place that has also doubled as the boiling pot for a violent clash of politics, history, and humanity.
Cape Millay is about a ten minute walk from The Backpack - the hostel where I am staying. Row after row of two story cement houses nestle against cobble stone streets that push up against the side of the mountain. (Aproximately the mother's neck.) Each house is painted a bright pastel color that compliments the whole neighborhood ascetic. When I say pastel, do not imagine kitchsy easter-egg adds from Fred Meyer. Instead, these colors adopt a stoic dignity when carefully painted throughout the neighborhood. You can feel the care and time put in to each house. They have stood here for ages, but the pain is as fresh as yesterday. Pinkgreenturquoisepinktanyellowgreen. "This wouldn't work if one house was by itself," Tyler says next to me. "But together, this creates something beautiful." He is right, and we walk further in - entranced by the colors, the linen strung between windows to dry, the dog sleeping in the shady doorway. In the distance the call to prayer is heard from the top of a mint-green mosque.